


No Way to Heal

by MaggieMaybe160



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Castiel (Supernatural)'s Handprint, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Crying Dean Winchester, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pain, Scarification, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieMaybe160/pseuds/MaggieMaybe160
Summary: Remember that handprint Castiel left on Dean’s shoulder? Dean can feel it flair with pain when Cas is in danger.





	No Way to Heal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jak_the_ATAT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jak_the_ATAT/gifts).



Dean stares into the mirror with his shirt sleeve lifted. A single handprint still scars him. It looks different than when he first received the mark. Back then, it had been puffed and angry with red skin raised in burned irritation. Now, the scar is flat and shiny. It’s pale white, standing out against the tan of his skin. The pain is a long faded memory, as is Hell where he earned this mark. 

Castiel had offered to remove the handprint, his remorse apparent. Dean had refused outright. 

“No. This makes me look badass.” 

If Dean was telling the truth, he didn’t want it removed because it was part of Cas. It was part of their story. His angel had ripped him out of Hell, his hands burning into his shoulders as he gripped him tight. 

Dean runs his fingers gently over the scarred skin of his shoulder. He remembers the first time it had hurt after it had started to heal. 

 

The first time his shoulder had hurt, a strange and strong stab, had been the night that Cas had been torn from Jimmy Novak’s vessel and dragged back to Heaven to be tortured. He had woken from his dream, his shoulder aching. As he drove, the entire handprint began to burn, the pain sinking into his bones with a dull ache. He had known when he looked into Jimmy’s eyes that Cas was gone. The pain receded again only when Cas returned, his face a mask as he walked away from them in the warehouse. 

Dean kept it to himself. He listened to Castiel call whatever it was between them a “profound bond” and he silently loved it, thinking of how he was marked by his angel. The handprint that seemed to keep them physically linked continued to hurt him, but only when Cas was in danger or hurt. If only it worked like a compass so he could come to the rescue instead of drown, lonely, in his own worry. 

The time Castiel spent with the reaper, April, were some of the worst days Dean thought he would ever experience. The pain gradually increased the longer the time went on. He couldn’t call Cas. He had to keep Sam and Zeke safe. His heart screamed at him that he needed to keep Cas safe, too. So he tried. He tried to get to Cas and save him. The intense pain in his shoulder felt like it was breaking all of the bones in his arm as he opened the door and found Cas. The second the blade plunged into Cas, all pain in Dean’s arm moved to his heart. 

 

Dean presses his lips together and clenches his jaw as he stares into the memories. He wishes he had gotten rid of the damn thing. He wishes he had gotten rid of it before… He had loved it for so long. He had loved feeling that tether to Castiel. When it was a tether. Now it was… 

Dean fits his own hand over the scar. 

 

The last time it had hurt was the worst. Cas was on a supply run, literally out scouring all over the world for the strange ingredients that the spell needed while Dean prepared the dungeon in the bunker and Sam worked on his pronunciations for the spell, researching and memorizing. 

Dean had been carrying the bowl, laden with other spell ingredients, when it happened. The most intense pain he had felt since when Lucifer had stabbed Cas. The bowl crashed to the ground as Dean’s entire arm seized. Dean clenched his teeth, his eyes shutting tight against the agony as he dropped to his knees and tried to breathe. 

“Dean?” Sam had yelled.

Dean hadn’t realized he’d screamed. He hadn’t actually realized he’d fallen to his knees until Sam ran in and he opened his eyes. He tried to speak, but only a strangled, groan escaped as he clutched at his shoulder. The pain was escalating. 

“Dean, what’s wrong?” Sam’s eyebrows were turned up in the middle, his eyes filled with worry. It was misplaced. 

“Cas,” Dean managed, fumbling for his phone. 

He dared to glance at his shoulder. He was surprised to find it still in one piece. It felt as though it should be ripped to shreds, the bones exposed and cracking, the muscles sawed in half, every nerve snapped. He took his hand away from his shoulder and came away with only a small amount of blood that might have been from his own nails digging into his skin. He couldn’t tell. 

“Cas,” Dean breathed again, pressing the speed dial and shutting his eyes again as he threw his head back in agony, choking off screams that threatened to leave him. 

“Dean, I’m sorry. I… I love you. I have to go.” Cas had swallowed hard enough that it was audible. “Goodbye, Dean.” 

“Cas!” Dean screamed into the phone as it disconnected. 

It was only five minutes. Five agonizing minutes of Sam trying to ask Dean what was going on while Dean writhed and repeatedly redialed Cas’ number. Five minutes. And then…

Nothing. 

Dean was left with a hollow feeling in his stomach, no pain in his shoulder, and a shattered heart. He scrambled up, yanking the sleeve of his shirt up and finding the scar was still there with small half moon crescents where his fingers had clawed into him. 

“Cas, no.” Dean ignored Sam as he ran a location search on Cas’ phone. Ireland. “Sam, we have to go get him.” 

Willingly, in fact it was his idea, Dean got on an airplane and white knuckled it the entire time. He only got up to check the scar in the cramped bathroom every moment that he could. Sam tried asking Dean what was going on, what had happened in the bunker, what was wrong with Cas? Dean only shook his head and held onto his barf bag. 

Dean sits on his bed with his head in his hands as he remembers finding Cas. Tears stream down his face and there’s no physical way to clench his jaw any harder. 

 

When he had found Castiel, his heart had broken. When he had watched Cas die by Lucifer’s hand, he had thought that was the worst it was ever going to get. When he had burned Cas’ corpse, tied up in a white sheet with care, he had thought that was the worst he was ever going to feel. He had been wrong. He had never anticipated having to do it again. 

Dean had always banked on the fact that Cas would be there until the end. 

When Dean walked into the field that day, he knew. His stomach dropped and his heart stopped. The field looked much the same as when Dean had woken up in his coffin after his forty years in Hell. A massive circle of nothing with a single form at the center. 

Dean had breathed, “No,” before taking those final steps toward Castiel. His wings, once shadows on the sigiled walls of a barn, were scorched into the Earth. Cas was dead. His blue eyes stared up into Dean’s face as Dean began to cry. 

“NO!” Dean screamed, sobbing as he crumpled beside the body of his unrequited love. He let himself scream, his face pressed into the still chest, his hands clutching at the trench coat desperately. 

 

Dean wipes the tears from his face and looks up as his door opens. Sam has a cup of coffee in his hands and the same apologetic and worried face that he’s been wearing for the past few months. 

“Breakfast?” Sam offers gently. Dean only shakes his head and swallows his memories away, smoothing his sleeve down to cover the scar. “You have to eat sometime.” 

“I eat,” Dean retorts. 

“Infrequently. When was the last time you ate  _ anything _ ?” 

“Recently enough that I still feel sick. Just go,” Dean turns away. 

“I know you miss him, but you can’t kill yourself over this. He wouldn’t want that.” 

“I know.”  Dean drags his hands through his hair and tightens every muscle in his body against the urge to cry again. “I…” 

_ I love him. _

It remains unsaid as Dean curls back up on his bed, his face pressed to the pillow, his hand over the lasting print of his angel, Castiel. 


End file.
